A Shadow Fell (15 page)

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
34

             
Picking up the trail was easier now. Henderson was making no effort to hide his presence. All he wanted to do
at the moment
was outrun us
a
nd he had the means to do so. It became fairly obvious that he was not going to head for his lair, wherever that might be. He would now want to get clear of the mountains altogether.

             
Or would he?

             
If there was one thing I knew about Reuben Henderson it was that you could expect the unexpected from him. In this case I began to wonder if he really wanted to lose us at all. I started to believe that Henderson might well decide to take a stand. All he had to do was lead us to high ground from which he could pick us off. He may have let his presence be known earlier simply to ensure that we would follow him to that very point of advantage.
I
t was a no lose situation for him on his first attempt. If he got us, great
; i
f not, then set us up so he couldn’t
miss
the next time.

             
Con, although a tracker of
uncanny
skill, appeared totally oblivious to the notion that we may be the subjects of a setup.
But the more thought I gave the matter, the more convinced I became I was right. After all, w
e were clearly outgunned by Henderson. He was in possession of a high-powered rifle with long range capability. Why run from us?

             
My efforts to
convinc
e
Con that we should slow down, take more precautions in our pursuit
, met with no success
. It was like trying to talk a preschooler into not running after the ice cream truck.

             
By nightfall, when we made camp, I was
thoroughly
exhausted
, both physically and emotionally. The mental strain of knowing that a bullet might be speeding toward me with every step I
t
ook,
exacted a huge
toll.
How Con continued to charge forward, seemingly unaffected by physical exertion
or concern for his safety
, was beyond me.

             
After our modest evening meal I went immediately into the tent and, before long,
had lapsed into a deep
sleep.

             
About
3
a.m. I
was awakened by something
I heard. I had no clear reckoning about what it might have been but the notion of distant gunshots ran through my mind as a possibility.
I realized
at once that
Con was not in the tent with me.
After five minutes or so it was apparent he was not simply out
taking
a piss. I crawled from my sleeping bag and stepped outside the tent.

             
The night was as black as coal.

             
Where the hell was he?
And what was he up to?
It was impossible to think of going back to sleep now. I went back into the tent for my flashlight and used it to look around. Con
’s clothes and boots were gone. He had dressed fully before heading off for places unknown in the middle of a pitch black night.

             
The more time I spent with this guy the more uncomfortable he was making me. His odd and unpredictable behavior
,
combined with his deceitful statements
about
his wife
, were finally beginning to eliminate any doubts I
still harbored
about his mental competence.
There was something going on with him. Something – I was becoming increasingly convinced – sinister.

             
Sitting alone throughout the night, awaiting the return of a man I was becoming more and more to think of as a madman, my resolve
for the mission I had set out on
, for the first time, started to wane.

             
Put in context my situation could be
summarized
as follows: I was in the middle of a vast wilderness
; c
hasing a
n armed
serial killer
; i
n the company of a man who was exhibiting signs of lunacy
; a man w
ho
had very likely
murdered his wife.

             
And what did I really hope to gain from this undertaking? A measure of vengeance? Did it make any sense at all for me to be spending my time doing this? Why wasn’t I at home, giving support and aid to my wife who surely needed me, now more than ever before in her life.

             
By the time the first faint light of day filtered through the trees I had
, at last,
come to
a
firm resolution.
I would take the knowledge we had gained here to the Feds and let them chase Henderson
down
.
Then
I would devote the rest of my life, if that was what it took, helping my wife regain her health.
And w
e would face whatever the future held for us together.

             
I went into the tent and pulled on
the rest of
my clothes. I reached for the  Glock I kept holstered and stored under my backpack at night.

             
It was gone.

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
3
5

             
If there was
any
doubt remaining in my mind that Con Edgerton had gone completely mad it was eliminated the moment he returned from his mysterious nocturnal expedition. The
look in his eyes
and the condition of his clothes as he tore into our camp
spoke volumes.

             
It was an hour past sunup. I had broken camp and had given serious thought to abandoning Con here. My only real hesitation came from knowing he could easily track me down and I feared what the outcome might be to what he would consider betrayal. There was also the very real possibility that I would never find my way back to civilization without him.

             
What he said when his eyes focused on me shocked me even more than his feral appearance.
             
“I got him,” he announced loudly.

             
“You what?”

             
“Come on. I’ll
show ya
.”

             
I was stunned.
“How the hell did you get him
at night
?”

             
“Hurry up,” he commanded.

             
“Con,” I said, “slow down. Tell me what’s going on. How did you get him?”

             
“I smelled smoke from his campfire after you turned in,” he said matter-of-factly. “Then I tracked it.”

             
It struck me as improbable that Henderson would have camped in such close proximity to us. He had the wherewithal to put a lot of distance between himself and us. Why start a fire where he would run the risk of
being
detect
ed
?
“How far is it from here?”

             
Con
shrugged. “
Half hour
hike.”

             
“How did you leave him? Is he alive?”

             
             
“
H
e’s dead
,
”
he told me.
“I killed him.”
There was absolutely no emotion
in this
declaration. He might just as well have told me it was a cloudy day.

             
Was it possible? Had Reuben Henderson finally come to an end?
I had a hundred questions but
it was hard to know where to start.
The first thing that came to mind was
determining
the location of my gun. Had he used my gun to shoot Henderson? “How did you kill him?” I asked.

             
“I used your Glock,” Con answered
, settling the issue quickly
. “How else was I gonna get him?”

             
A
sinking feeling
was
starting to form in my gut
making me slightly nauseous
. “Where is the gun now?”

             
Con reached into his jacket pocket
and extracted my gun
, holding it by the barrel
.
He handed it to me grip forward.
I wanted to check it to see if it was loaded but I didn’t want to give Con the impression I distrusted him so I holstered it.

             
“What happened when you found him?” I asked. “Was there a struggle? Did he try to shoot you?”

             
“Yeah, of course,” Con said. “What do ya think he did?”

             
I didn’t like what I was hearing one bit. None of it had the ring of legitimacy. Confronting him on the matter at this point, however,
seemed ill advised in the extreme
.
“
Let’s go
,” I said
.

             
Con had underestimated the distance to
the
campsite. It only took us about twenty minutes to reach it.
As soon as we came
upon
it I
knew everything
was wrong. The site was open to the elements
; t
here had been no effort made to conceal anything about the location.
A
large
one-man tent stood a
few
feet from a
rock-enclosed
campfire in which a few
dying embers still prevailed.
Whoever had established this cozy little nest had been here for awhile. And t
here was no sign of a dirt bike.

             
A man with a
full
grey beard, wearing a peaked hunter’s cap and checkered shirt, lay
slouched against a
fallen
log with two bullet holes in his chest
.

             
He
wasn’t dead but he wasn’t in good shape.

             
Neither was
he
Reuben Henderson.

             
             
             
             
             
             
             
36

             
All my energy suddenly seemed to
vacate
my body. I was bone tired. I hadn’t slept much last night of course which accounted for some of it, but mostly it was the sheer sadness of the tragic circumstances I now found myself immersed in. I
knelt down beside the poor bastard Con had shot and had a look at his wounds. They looked bad. Blood flowed freely from one hole dead centre in his chest and another a little lower and off to the left. I took a towel from my backpack and pressed it to the wounds, then tied them tightly with a belt.  He opened his eyes briefly when I
was done
and mumbled something I didn’t understand.
Even Winston seemed to understand the immensity of the tragedy that was playing out. He crouched beside me and whined softly.

             
I looked at
Con
. “W
hat the fuck
were you thinking
?
” I
seethed
. “
You must know this is not Henderson. This guy is at least twenty years younger for Christ’s sake.”

             
U
ndoubtedly
he
did know but, for whatever his reasons, chose to act surprised. “You sure?” he asked casually.

             
“Jesus,” I moaned. “Did you just walk into his camp and shoot
him w
ithout even making a
n
effort to confirm
who
he was?”

             
Con shrugged unapologetically. “Looked like he was reaching for a gun ta me. I wasn’t gonna take no chances.”

             
“You realize, of course,
if he dies
you’re going to have to answer to the law for this, right?”

             
Con pushed out his chin and stared down his nose at me. “Weren’t my gun that shot him.”

             
“What!?”

             
“I ain’t going ta prison, amigo. Not for this, I ain’t. I was just trying ta help you, that’s all.”

             
“Help me
?
” I said amazed. “By
shooting
an innocent camper? That’s how you’re trying to help me?”

             
“Look,” Con said, “so I made a mistake. All we gotta do is
finish him off and
bury
him
. Ain’t no way anybody’s ever gonna find him way up here.”

             
I shook my head in utter astonishment. “That’s your solution?
Murder him
?”

             
“
Looks like we’d be doing him a favor,
” he said.

             
It was all too clear there was no sense arguing with Con’s twisted logic. But it did beg the question of what to do. If Con decided to stick to his version of events it would be his word against mine. And even though he had a dubious past there was no denying my mental state was far from healthy. Given what I had gone through in the past few months it might be argued I was easily capable of making a misjudgment such as this.

             
I hadn’t yet had the chance to check the Glock for bullets but I did have two spare magazines in my backpack. I didn’t know for sure whether or not Con was aware of these. I had never mentioned them but it was entirely possible he had gone through my things while I had slept one night.
             
It suddenly occurred to me that maybe I didn’t have the spare mags I thought I had. Con was no fool even if he
was
firing on fewer cylinders than normal. He may well have removed them at the same time he took the Glock. If
so
I was most likely in real trouble. I still felt there was at least a possibility that Con had his own weapon in his backpack. If that was the case he had used my weapon to kill
the camper, intentionally or not, with the objective of pointing the finger at me for it if things went bad.

             
In the ruse of going along with Con’s thinking and in order to give myself the opportunity to check my backpack I said, “Before we do anything
I need to eat something. My blood sugar is plummeting.” I reached into one of the compartments on my pack, ostensibly searching for a high-energy bar.
             
My heart sank like a rock in a shallow puddle.

             
The two spare mags were
indeed
missing.
I didn’t have to check the Glock to know it was empty too.